Ye friends of my heart, This hope to my breast is most near: In this rural retreat, May we meet, as we part, with a Tear. When my soul wings her flight And my corse shall recline on its bier,* Where my ashes consume, Oh! moisten their dust with a Tear. ELIZA, what fools are the Mussulman sect, Who to woman deny the soul's future existence; Could they see thee, Eliza, they 'd own their defect, And this doctrine would meet with a general resistance. Had their prophet possess'd half an atom of sense, With women alone he had peopled his heaven. Yet still to increase your calamities more, Not content with depriving your bodies of spirit, He allots one poor husband to share amongst four! With souls you'd dispense; but this last, who could bear it? "And my body shall sleep on its bier."- Private volume. ↑ Found only in the private volume His religion to please neither party is ma.; On husbands 't is hard, to the wives the most uncivil, Still I can't contradict, what so oft has been said, "Though women are angels, yet wedlock's the devil." LINES WRITTEN IN "LETTERS OF AN ITALIAN NUN AND AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN. BY J. J. ROUSSEAU FOUNDED ON FACTS."* 66 “AWAY, away, your flattering arts ANSWER TO THE FOREGOING, ADDRESSED TO MISS DEAR, simple girl, those flattering arts, From which thou'dst guard frail female hearts, Mere phantoms of thine own creation; For he who views that witching grace, Which from our sex demands such praises, : Then he who tells thee of thy beauty, Ah! fly not from the candid youth; It is not flattery, 'tis truth. • Only printed in the private volume. July, 1804. THE CORNELIAN.* No specious splendour of this stone And blushes modest as the giver. Some, who can sneer at friendship's ties, He offer'd it with downcast look, This pledge attentively I view'd, Still, to adorn his humble youth, Nor wealth nor birth their treasures yield; 'Tis not the plant uprear'd in sloth, Which beauty shows, and sheds perfume; Had Fortune aided Nature's care, But had the goddess clearly seen, His form had fix'd her fickle breast; To young Eddleston. This poem is only found in the private volume. ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY, COUSIN TO THE AUTHOR, AND VERY DEAR TO HIM. t HUSH'D are the winds, and still the evening gloom, Within this narrow cell reclines her clay, That clay where once such animation beam'd; Oh! could that King of Terrors pity feel, Or Heaven reverse the dread decrees of fate! But wherefore weep? her matchless spirit soars Where endless pleasures virtue's deeds repay. And shall presumptuous mortals heaven arraign, Yet is remembrance of those virtues dear, Yet fresh the memory of that beauteous face; Still in my heart retain their wonted place. * Miss Parker. + To these stanzas, which are from the private volume, the following note was attached: "The author claims the indulgence of the reader more for this piece, than, perhaps, any other in the collection; but as it was written at an earlier period than the rest (being composed at the age of fourteen), and his first essay, he preferred submitting it to the indulgence of his friends in its present state, to making either addition or alteration." VOL. V. S TO EMMA.* SINCE now the hour is come at last, Alas! that pang will be severe, Which bids us part to meet no more, Which tears me far from one so dear, Departing for a distant shore. Well we have pass'd some happy hours, Where from the gothic casement's height, O'er fields through which we used to run, Whilst I, admiring, too remiss, Forgot to scare the hov'ring flies, Yet envied every fly the kiss It dared to give your slumbering eyes: See still the little painted bark, In which I row'd you o'er the lake; See there, high waving o'er the park, The elm I clamber'd for your sake. These times are past - our joys are gone, This poem is inserted from the private volume. |